Managers · code 1223
Research and development managers
AI can speed up the research. Choosing which ideas to bet on is still management.
Planning and coordinating R&D is the one task AI could take a fair chunk of. The other seven, including running the day and managing people, are mostly out of its reach.
What they actually do (and what else they get called)
Research and development managers plan, direct and coordinate the research and development activities of an enterprise or organization or of enterprises that provide related services to other enterprises and organizations. Tasks include - (a) planning, directing and coordinating research and development activities, in-house or commissioned from external research organizations, to develop new or improved technical processes, products, knowledge, or utilization of materials; (b) planning the overall research and development programme of an enterprise or organization, specifying goals and budgetary requirements; (c) leading and managing the activities of research and development staff; (d) establishing and managing budgets, controlling expenditure and ensuring the efficient use of resources; (e) establishing and directing operational and administrative procedures; (f) planning and directing daily operations; (g) overseeing the selection, training and performance of staff; (h) representing the enterprise or organization at conventions, seminars and conferences. Examples of the occupations classified here: - Product development manager - Research manager
- product manager
- research and development manager
Job titles from the EU's ESCO list. Search for any of them on the jobs page and you'll end up here.
60 / 100
Mostly holds up against AI
AI can take a few chores off your plate, but most of the day is still yours.
Not the odds you keep your job. It's how much of the everyday work still needs a person, out of 100.
The ILO's official verdict: Minimal Exposure
328 of 427 for holding up against AI
Not quite your week? Make it yours ↓
Why this score?
The ILO rated each of this job's 8 tasks for how much of it AI could do. They average 39.7 out of 100, so it holds up at 100 − 39.7 = 60.3.
That's the whole sum. No black box, no secret sauce: you can check it against the ILO's study. ILO group “Minimal Exposure”: A few tasks are affected, but the heart of the job isn't.
This job rates 30.3 out of 100 for how hands-on it is. The score above only looks at AI tools, not robots, but for work this far from the physical that matters less.
from the source Working Paper 140, Generative AI and Jobs 2025 index data 0.8-observed-use
Man v Bot · compare
Who holds up better?
Research and development managers 60
vGo on, try your partner's job. Or your sibling's. We won't tell.
Man v Bot
Where the bot helps, and where the human wins
Bot
What AI takes
The routine stuff. You may not miss it.
- Coordinating research programmes.
- Budgets and reporting.
- Research reviews.
Man
What people still do better
Judgement, trust and skilled hands. Hard to download.
- Choosing which projects to back.
- Leading research teams.
- Representing the work.
Both
What's arriving
New work that only exists because the AI does.
- AI-accelerated R&D.
- Intellectual property questions about AI.
- Faster product cycles.
Written by a human, from the ILO's task ratings below. Yes, we see the irony. Read it as one person's take.
Meet your two rivals
They're not the same machine. AI software can only reach the parts of a job done on a screen or in words. A chatbot can't climb a ladder. A robot might, one day, if it doesn't fall off.
The AI
Lives in a screen. Never had to fix a boiler.
Threat level: Medium
43 could do without you
It could take over some of the work, and help with more. It could help with 71 of 100.
The robot
The wildcard. Has hands, still working out stairs.
How much it matters here: Lower
30 how hands-on
Not much of this job needs hands, so the robot can sit this one out.
So could a robot do the physical part?
Less than half of this job is hands-on. Robots still matter, but for a smaller part of the work, so we don't sort it any further.
Robots hate fiddly work in awkward spaces. On that measure, this job scores 22 out of 100. The higher it is, the longer the robot waits.
hands-on
and cramped
Kind of hands-on work Less than half hands-on
The small print
They aren't a robot score, and nothing on this page is. Nobody measures how far robots have got well enough to put a number on it. These are the closest thing we have: how hands-on the job is, and how much fiddly, cramped work it takes, which is what Frey and Osborne found hardest for machines.
From O*NET, averaged across 5 US jobs .
finger skill 30.7 · hand skill 17.4 · cramped spaces 17.7 · averaged · rule: hands-on under 50
estimated O*NET 31.0 BLS occupational crosswalk chain ISCO-08 to 2010 SOC (Aug 2012, rev. Jun 2015); 2010 to 2018 SOC (Nov 2017); O*NET-SOC 2019 taxonomy data 0.8-observed-use measures chosen by Frey & Osborne (2017) · the grouping is a sorting, not a measurement
The job, task by task
Every job is really a bundle of tasks. Here's this one unpacked, with how much of each AI could do, out of 100. The score is the average, and averages can hide a lot.
AI's favourite task here scores 50, against an average of 40. The bigger the gap, the more lopsided the job: some of it wide open to AI, some of it barely touched.
- 50
Planning, directing and coordinating research and development activities, in-house or commissioned from external research organizations, to develop new or improved technical processes, products, knowledge, or utilization of materials
Medium - 47
Establishing and directing operational and administrative procedures
Low - 41
Representing the enterprise or organization at conventions, seminars and conferences.
Low - 40
Establishing and managing budgets, controlling expenditure and ensuring the efficient use of resources
Low - 40
Planning the overall research and development programme of an enterprise or organization, specifying goals and budgetary requirements
Low - 36
Leading and managing the activities of research and development staff
Low - 33
Planning and directing daily operations
Low - 32
Overseeing the selection, training and performance of staff
Low
8 tasks · the High to Very Low labels are the ILO's
from the source Working Paper 140, Generative AI and Jobs 2025 index data 0.8-observed-use
New · the weekly task audit
Your week, your score
The score above assumes R&D managers spend the same time on every task. You don't. Slide each task to how much of your week it takes, and we'll re-weight the same ILO ratings to fit your job.
- Some
- Some
- Some
- Some
- Some
- Some
- Some
- Some
Your score
60 / 100
Same as the job as a whole, so far.
Move the sliders to make it yours.
The job as a whole: 60 / 100
Link copied.
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Sidekick or replacement?
A tool that makes you faster is a very different thing from one that does the task while you watch. Jobs and Skills Australia measured the two separately, which is handy.
- AI helps you
- 71
- AI does it for you
- 43
Sidekick wins, by 28 points.
How good a match is this?
One Australian job matches this one closely, so this is about as reliable as it gets here.
estimated Our Gen AI Transition (Gen AI Capacity Study) September 2025 detailed data release data 0.8-observed-use matched to Australian jobs 1325
Meanwhile, in real life…
Everything else here is about what AI could do. This is what people actually did. When they asked Claude for help with this kind of work, did they hand the whole task over, or roll their sleeves up and work through it together?
Out of every 100 conversations
worked through it together handed it over
The small print
Anthropic publishes this about its own product, and it doesn't feed into any score here. These are people who use Claude, not workers in general, so little use here doesn't mean AI can't reach the job. This job makes up 0.17% of the conversations.
The data is sorted by US job, and this one matches 3 of them. We've combined them, counting each by how often it comes up in the conversations, so the busiest one counts most.
These two add up to 100. The bars elsewhere on the page don't, because each is scored on its own, so we don't put them side by side.
observed use Anthropic Economic Index release 2026-06-26, period beginning 2026-05-01 data 0.8-observed-use 2026-05-01 · Anthropic, about its own product
So, should R&D managers be worried?
Short answer: not much. Some of the chores will change, and good riddance.
Parts of the job are changing. Coordinating R&D is rated Medium; procedures, conferences, budgets, programme planning, leading staff and hiring are Low. AI speeds up research; judgement about bets and people stays human.
Worth remembering: we score tasks, not jobs. When AI takes on a task, the job usually reshuffles around it rather than vanishing.
Where this job could lead
None of the new jobs we've written up start from here yet. Could be you're the first. See the jobs AI is creating →
How are the neighbours doing?
There are 30 jobs in the “Managers” family, averaging 64. This one is below the family average.
- Aquaculture and fisheries production … 78
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- Mining managers 65
- Human resource managers 64
- Policy and planning managers 64
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- Senior officials of special-interest … 63
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- Finance managers 63
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- Senior government officials 62
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- Sales and marketing managers 59
- Business services and administration … 58
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